Tracks Sponsored by the 2024 Conference Committee. This track welcomes submissions related to our conference theme. This track will also consider submissions which do not fit into other tracks. More information about the conference theme.
SIG chair: Layla Branicky, (University of Bath), SIG CHAIR (ljb217@bath.ac.uk)
GT14_00 General Track – Fostering Innovation to Address Grand Challenges
Grand challenges – system scale, complex, issues requiring sustained and coordinated action by multiple actors – are of growing academic and practice interest. Issues such as the ageing society, the climate crisis, and social and economic inequality increasingly threaten our way of life. Technological innovation is arguably key to addressing grand challenges, as seen in relation to energy transitions and poverty alleviation. At the same time, radical innovations – such as big data, artificial intelligence, and vehicle autonomy – have created new challenges, many of which are of an ethical nature. In the conference stream, we welcome submissions that explore
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy; Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth; Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure; Goal 10: Reducing inequalities; Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities; Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production; Goal 13: Climate action; Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions; Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals
Primary Contact:
Layla Branicki, University of Bath School of Management – ljb217@bath.ac.uk
TRACKS 2024
T14_01 – Societal inequalities and its organizational implications: Moving research and practice forward
Inequality in multiple dimensions has long been recognized as an important social and economic phenomenon that is of central concern both for policy and organizational practice. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as global conflict, migration, and social and political exclusion, has seen inequality grow within and between countries in recent years. In this track, we invite contributions from across the sub-fields of business and management, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations involving management scholars, that address the intersections between societal and organizational inequalities.
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Goal 5: Gender equality,Goal 10: Reducing inequalities
Primary Contact:
Vivek Soundararajan, University of Bath – vs602@bath.ac.uk
T14_02 – Planetary Boundaries, Interconnected Ecologies, and the Grand Challenge of Environmental Sustainability
Global business and society face a series of increasingly urgent and interconnected environmental challenges. These challenges include the climate crisis most typified by increasing surface and ocean temperatures, but also extend to collapsing biodiversity, specific pollution challenges, water insecurity, and deforestation, among others. Business has a critical role to play in the transition to a nature-positive global economy and society. In this track, we invite contributions from across the sub-fields of business and management, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations involving management scholars, that address the role of business in responding to the grand challenge of environmental sustainability.
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation,Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy,Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities,Goal 13: Climate action,Goal 14: Life below water,Goal 15: Life on land,Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals
Primary Contact:
Frederik Dahlmann, University of Warwick – Frederik.Dahlmann@wbs.ac.uk
T14_03 – Business and Management Education to prepare students for Grand Challenges
Our students’ generations face challenges that are often unpredictable, chaotic and seemingly unsolvable, and researchers question if business schools can meet these challenges (Waddock, 2020). Technological innovations emerge at speed with business schools and their students needing to move apace to keep up with changes in markets and society. As business educators, we must prepare our students for jobs that might not yet exist and teach them to adapt to technologies that are not yet invented. This track critically appraises the grand challenges faced by business students and questions how to educate them to innovate when faced with such challenges.
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Goal 4: Quality education
Primary Contact:
Kristen Reid, The Open University Faculty of Business and Law – kristen.reid@open.ac.uk
T14_04 – Managing well-being and the good life: comprehensive approaches to industrial transformations
All business activity is eventually related to well-being and “the good life”. Nevertheless, management research knows too little about the way how different products, services and industries in general complement or contradict one another in their contributions. Today’s grand challenges force us to re-think our current understanding of “the good life” and to reconstruct our notions of well-being on a new basis. We welcome all submissions that shed light on how this can be done. This includes empirical work on changing notions of well-being and comprehensive experiences of “the good life”, as well as conceptual papers discussing measurements or interventions.
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Goal 1: No poverty,Goal 3: Good health and well-being for people,Goal 5: Gender equality,Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy,Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth,Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure,Goal 10: Reducing inequalities,Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities,Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production,Goal 13: Climate action,Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions,Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals
Primary Contact:
Albrecht Fritzsche, Rabat Business School – albrecht.fritzsche@uir.ac.ma
T14_05 – What management can and cannot do against Corruption? Managerial technologies in anti-corruption policies
While the overall cost of corruption is difficult to estimate, research on this topic points out it constitutes a substantial burden on developed as well as developing economies; for example on poor governance, unpaid taxes, lack of equal opportunities and development of organized crime. Corruption is probably one of the most understudied and lasting grand challenges of our time. Notably, corruption is multifaceted in that it can be legal or illegal, with varieties of shades of (il)legalism.
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Goal 3: Good health and well-being for people,Goal 4: Quality education,Goal 5: Gender equality,Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation,Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth,Goal 10: Reducing inequalities,Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities,Goal 13: Climate action,Goal 14: Life below water,Goal 15: Life on land,Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions
Primary Contact:
Charles Barthold, Open University – charles.barthold@open.ac.uk